What Accessibility Tools Should Financial Services Companies Use?

A retailer picks an accessibility tool the way it picks most software. It compares features, checks the price, gets approval (if needed), and signs up. A bank? The process looks vastly different. 

So what accessibility tools do financial services companies use? They need platforms that pair automated monitoring with expert audits and align with banking-grade requirements such as SOC 2, data residency, and audit trails. 

The stack looks different because the problem is harder. A tool here has to reach the dashboards, applications, and portals behind a login where customers move money, operate as a secure vendor inside a regulated environment, and produce proof that the institution can show when regulators or plaintiffs come asking.

Below, we’ll explain the risk surfaces for financial services companies, the regulatory pressures behind them, the litigation that shaped how this sector buys, and the requirements a tool has to meet before a financial institution will put its name on it.

Why Financial Services Accessibility is Different

Most accessibility advice is written for a standard marketing site. Financial services have to account for something harder. The interfaces are authenticated, transaction-heavy, and updated constantly, and a single broken flow can lock a customer out of their own money. 

Some of the risk surfaces carrying the most exposure include:

• Online banking dashboards: Authenticated, dynamic, and rebuilt often. A screen reader user who cannot navigate the balance view or initiate a transfer is shut out of core banking.

• Member and policyholder portals: Where credit union members and insurance customers manage claims, statements, and account changes. These pages sit behind login, so public scanners never see them.

• Mortgage and loan applications: Long, multi-step forms with strict validation. A keyboard trap or an unlabeled field can stop a user from using the application altogether.

• Statements and disclosures: These are often delivered as PDFs, which are one of the most common and most overlooked failures in the sector. 

Each of these is a place where an inaccessible interface becomes a customer who cannot bank, a complaint, and a legal target. An accessibility solution has to reach all of these, including the pages behind authentication that most automated-only tools skip. 

The Financial Services Regulatory Landscape

Banks, credit unions, and insurers face accessibility obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act(opens in a new tab) (ADA), and they answer to financial regulators who scrutinize how they manage technology and third-party vendors. This layered pressure is something unique to the financial services industry. The first layer is the one with the longest history behind it: the ADA.

How the ADA Applies to Financial Institutions

Courts have consistently treated financial websites as covered by the ADA, and the standard they use for compliance is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines(opens in a new tab) (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA. The practical question is which part of the ADA applies, which depends on the type of institution:

• Private banks, insurers, and most fintech firms are typically treated as places of public accommodation, which means their websites are covered by Title III of the ADA.

• Public and quasi-public entities, including some credit unions affiliated with government bodies or public employers, may fall under Title II, which governs state and local government services. 

That difference decides which rules apply, so don't assume. For institutions subject to Title II, review their compliance obligations. If not, start with the broader ADA compliance requirements.

Whichever regulation applies, the pressure is the same: financial institutions face accessibility complaints far more often than most sectors, and the barriers are real. AudioEye’s 2025 Digital Accessibility Index puts numbers to that. Across 1,529 financial service websites, finance had one of the highest rates of inaccessible forms among sectors, failing WCAG’s form-labeling criterion on 24.5% of pages, alongside an average of 8.3 keyboard accessibility issues per page. 

Forms and keyboard navigation are how customers open accounts, transfer funds, and complete transactions, so those are exactly the failures a financial services tool has to find and fix. That’s the real test of a tool.

What Financial Services Accessibility Tools Must Do

In financial services, buying an accessibility tool means vetting the company behind it, not just what the product offers. The vendor has to clear security and risk review before the tool goes anywhere near the site. 

And the institution may have to show not only that it bought a tool, but also that it manages the vendor, monitors the program, and documents the work well enough to hold up under risk reviews and examinations to which the sector is subject. 

Here is what a financial services accessibility tool should offer and what to test for before making a decision:

• SOC 2 Type II: Look for evidence that the vendor’s security controls work over time, not just on the day of the audit. This is critical for any tool touching a financial institution’s environment.

• Data residency controls: Gain clarity on where customer data is stored and processed to ensure data governance obligations are met. 

• Audit trails and logging: Ensure that a durable record of what was tested, what was found, and what was fixed is provided. Examiners and litigation defense both run on documentation. 

• Continuous monitoring: Authenticated banking flows are changing constantly. A point-in-time scan becomes stale almost immediately, so the tool must monitor the site continuously. 

• Expert audit capability: Automation alone can’t judge whether a multi-step loan application is actually usable with a screen reader. Human experts must test real flows, so solutions should also offer expert audits. 

• VPAT and ACR support: Ensure vendors offer documented conformance reporting that procurement and vendor-risk teams can file and reference. 

• Single sign-on (SSO): Tools should include enterprise authentication so the solution fits inside the institution’s existing access controls. 

A Comparison Framework for Financial Services Platforms

Financial services buyers should evaluate accessibility platforms beyond features. They should evaluate the criteria their own procurement and risk-review teams care about. Below are a few questions to ask before selecting a tool: